The Dead Saga (Book 4): Odium IV

by Claire C. Riley

  Its undead life blinks out immediately and I stand back up before any more of the gore can get on me. I look over at Phil and Ricky, seeing that now that we’re creating a noise, more and more deaders are coming out of their tents like they’ve been awakened by noisy neighbors and are ready to complain.

  “Fuck,” I whisper under my breath, hearing the chanting groan of the dead.

  I scan behind us, seeing our way of escape rapidly closing as child deaders, moms, dads, and even what appears to be a ringmaster deader still wearing his smart sparkly waistcoat are shambling toward us, groaning and grunting in hunger and anger.

  “We need to get out of here,” I call to the others, the moment growing more and more urgent with every passing second.

  “I second that,” O’Donnell says, taking aim with her gun and firing at one of the deaders that was getting too close.

  Ricky turns and glares.

  “What?” she snaps, taking another shot.

  “You planning on letting everyone in on our location?” he yells, as more groans join in the already loud chorus. “Because it sure as shit seems like you’re inviting everyone to the party and there ain’t enough beer to go around.”

  She takes another shot and glares back at Ricky defiantly, and I note that she’s aiming for any of the deaders that even vaguely resemble clowns, and forgoing the rest. Her personal vendetta against clown deaders has reached a new high.

  “He’s right—those shots will be heard for miles, and I reckon those little masked killers will know of a way to get across to us quicker than we can take these deaders out,” I say, yanking my knife out of a deader’s skull before plunging it into the head of another deader almost immediately. “I think now would be a good time to get out of here.” I slam my blade right through the eye of the deader, and green and black pus oozes out of the hole, splattering my shirt when I pull my knife back out.

  Phil comes running back over. “I agree, this circus sucks monkey balls—big fucking monkey balls! Let’s go.”

  I note that he still has the bag in his hand, and he grins as I look down at it. Ricky joins us and we stand back to back looking around for a clear escape out of this hell. A gap between the main tent and a fallen one seems the most feasible, and I point to it.

  “That way, quickly.” I have to yell since there are so many deaders coming out of the woodwork now and it’s getting too loud to think. Wait, maybe not woodwork, but tentwork. Is that even a word? Anyway…

  We all set off running, heading for the small gap and taking out the deaders that get too close to us—kicking them backwards and into the ones behind, or taking shots as we run. Mostly we pray that there isn’t another mini-horde behind the tent, because if there is, we’re well and truly screwed. And not in a good way. I’m talking end-of-the-night, last-woman-at-the-disco, beer-goggles screwed.

  As we trample over the fallen tent, I feel the bodies underneath the thick plastic sheets moving and hands searching to grab ahold of us. O’Donnell screams and I’m almost certain that Phil does too, dropping his bag in his rush to get off of the fallen tent and away from the deaders underneath it.

  We head around the tent and begin running full pelt toward some vehicles which are haphazardly parked. Some are crashed, their owners’ haste to leave this place causing them to stay here forever, but one car seems out of place amongst them all and I run toward that, trying the handle and finding it open. I throw open the door and sit in the seat, seeing the keys still swinging from the ignition.

  The horde has followed us, and more deaders are making their way toward us from between the parked vehicles. I look up at O’Donnell’s panicked face and turn the key, the same look crossing our faces as the engine starts first time.

  I’m glad, but also wary. We’re smack dab in the middle of rock-bottom nowhere, with dusty fields and empty highways for as far as the eye can see. Yet this car is here, the engine sounding good, the keys in the ignition, ready and waiting…for us?

  Everyone piles in, and the doors aren’t even shut as I start to drive us the hell out of here and away from the surging undead bodies that are beginning to swarm like flies on shit. O’Donnell pulls the backpack full of bombs off and puts it in the footspace, and I grimace and say a silent prayer because through all of that fighting, I’d forgotten about the damned bombs she was carrying.

  The dusty field the cars are parked in spews up dust behind us as I drive recklessly, swerving out of the way of deaders and other vehicles, praying to find an end to this madness at some point soon. It’s like a maze of cars and bodies, and though I try to avoid it I clip a couple of deaders as we pass them, their gore splattering up onto the windows and making it harder to see.

  Eventually the tires hit a gravel road and I speed up, the engine revving as I peel the car down the open stretch of dusty road and away from the circus of horrors forever. I watch in my rearview mirror as the undead show continues to shamble after us, their gazes fixed on their runaway lunch. I pity whoever stumbles across this horde, feeling apologetic to these people who I’ll likely never meet, because this is definitely one group of deaders that will haunt my dreams, and I willingly walked into this nightmare. I can’t imagine the true horror of randomly stumbling across this crazy bunch of nightmares.

  Phil climbs over the armrest and comes to sit in the passenger seat next to me, giving O’Donnell and Ricky some more space. Phil is sweaty and covered in gore, and he opens the glove compartment of the car, searching through the useless crap that’s inside until he finds an open pack of tissues. Then he pulls one out, takes off his glasses, and begins to clean the blood off them.

  I glance at him as he breathes on the glass, bringing it to a glossy finish, and he looks at me as he slides them back on. Blood is splattered up the side of his face and into his beard, and his eyes are still wide with anxiousness as he catches his breath, the adrenaline of the situation still fueling him. I wonder if I have the same frozen horrified expression as he does.

  “Hey,” Ricky says from the back, and I look at him in the mirror.

  Phil turns and looks over his shoulder, and Ricky hands him the plastic bag Phil had dropped.

  “Dude!” Phil laughs.

  “Saw you drop it,” Ricky replies with a shrug as though it’s no big deal, but I see the small smile on his face. He sees my stare and shrugs again. “NEO, right?”

  I think about this for a moment, deciding that maybe he isn’t as big a dick as I first thought, and I nod. Sure, I think taking whatever is in that bag back to Haven is fucked up and wrong on so many levels, but who am I to judge? In fact, who are any of us to judge anymore? None of us are the people we once were, and I highly doubt that any of us are the people we hoped to be.

  We’re all just trying to make it whatever way we can.

  “Yeah, NEO,” I reply, and turn my attention back to the road in front of us, letting my thoughts wander on the new problem we had.

  Where does this road lead? How do we get back to our truck and take out the barn like Aiken asked us to do? And what do I do about Adam now?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  We drive for miles down the same dirt road, and see nothing on either side of us barring the odd stray deader. The sun is beginning to fall and the day is finally cooling, but of course that brings a new set of problems for us—the main one being, of course, that we’re still miles from Haven. I need to stretch my legs and the car has been making some strange ticking noises for the past couple of miles, so I pull it to the side of the road and shut off the engine.

  Ricky leans forward between the two seats. “Everything okay?”

  “I need to check the engine out, it’s been ticking for the past couple of miles.” I open my door, wincing as it gives a loud creaking sound. I groan as I straighten my legs and stretch my arms above my head.

  “I’ll take over driving when we get back on the road,” O’Donnell says as she rolls her shoulders and steps around to the front of the car so she can pop the hood.
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  I watch her in fascination and she grins. “My dad showed me a thing or two about cars. You don’t need to worry about me breaking a nail.” She rolls her shoulders again and I hear the loud crunching sounds coming from them.

  Steam is coming from the engine of the car. Not a lot, but enough to make me worry. But unlike O’Donnell, I don’t know a lot about car engines—only that smoke is never a good thing.

  “Let’s let it cool off. I can’t touch anything until then anyway,” she says before moving around to the back of the car. “So do you want me to drive on the way back?”

  “The way back to where?” I ask, looking around us at the empty landscape. “Where in the hell are we, even?”

  Phil sits at the edge of the road and I watch him open up the plastic carrier bag before pulling out something gross and bloody. I look away, not wanting to see whatever it is or whatever he’s going to do with it.

  “We’re in fuckbutt nowhere, Mikey, but there’s always a way back,” Ricky answers with a laugh. I stare at him, and he shrugs and stops laughing. “What? I can be fun too.”

  “No, you can’t. You’re the grumpy asshole, I’m the fun one,” Phil barks up from his place on the ground. “And the most attractive, remember?”

  “Wait, well what does that make me if I’m not the fun one?” O’Donnell asks, sounding genuinely concerned. She walks to the front of the car and pulls the keys from the ignition before coming back around and unlocking the trunk.

  “You’re the survivor. Because you know out of all of us you’re the one that will survive,” Phil says, looking up at her sincerely.

  She rolls her eyes but smirks. “You bet your sweet ass I will.”

  She presses the trunk button and lifts the lid, and all three of us jump backwards as a deader reaches for us.

  “Zed!” O’Donnell calls, already grabbing at her waist for her knife. But Ricky is on hand with his first and he slams his blade through the deader’s temple.

  Phil has jumped up and is standing with us now, his hands covered in black gore and his eyes wide. “Trunk zed,” he says, though it’s more to himself than us. “I hate trunk zeds.”

  Ricky and I grab the deader and drag it out of the trunk before moving its body to the side of the road. When we return, O’Donnell is rummaging through the contents of the trunk.

  “Anything?” I ask, wiping my hands down my pants.

  “Of course not, but it’s always worth a shot,” she replies before slamming the trunk back down. “I wonder how the zed got stuck in there.” She leans back against the trunk and crosses her arms over her chest as she stares back the way we came.

  Phil has gone back to whatever it is he was doing previously, and Ricky has begun searching the floor of the car and between the seats. It’s a smart move. You’d be surprised what people lost between their seats. I’ve found a lot of things: twenty dollars, an old Bic pen, photos, and old potato chips. Of course none of that shit is useful now, though, but back in the day a spare twenty dollars was always useful.

  “Well first off it wasn’t stuck, it was trapped—and on purpose, no doubt. And secondly,” I turn to look at her, “are you sure that we’re okay?”

  I seem to have this knack for getting myself into trouble, especially where women are concerned, and even after all the shit I’ve been through, that part of me hasn’t changed.

  O’Donnell looks down at her feet and I watch her chew on the inside of her cheek for a moment before answering me.

  “We’re all searching for someone, Mikey. Whether it’s a friend or more,” she glances at me before looking away just as quickly, “people need to connect. It’s in our nature. It’s what makes us human, and is exactly what separates us from the monsters.” She gives a small laugh and shakes her head.

  “What’s so funny?” I ask.

  “It wasn’t so long ago that I would have said that differently.” She looks at me again, and now I see the pain vibrant on her features. “That it’s what separates us from the animals. But now it’s monsters.” She looks away again. “Zeds.”

  “Deaders,” I reply, and I watch her mouth quirk into a bitter smile.

  “I fucking hate them. Whatever we decide to call them.” Her forehead creases as she looks down the road. Her gaze is faraway, her thoughts close behind. “They took everything.”

  I swallow, unsure of what to say. I’m not good at this sort of thing, but worse still, I’m not used to O’Donnell acting so…emotional. From what I’ve seen of her the past couple of days, she’s hard and methodical. She’s a survivor, at any costs. She thinks logically, at least for the most part, and she isn’t swayed from her decisions. But today I’ve seen her fears, and now I’m seeing her sadness.

  “Yeah, yeah, they took everything from everyone,” Ricky says, coming from around the side of the car. “We all know how it goes down. We’ve all been there, lived it, and breathed it. You’re better than this, O’Donnell, get a grip.”

  I stand up straight and glare at him, and I open my mouth to give him a piece of my mind. She just wants a little comforting, that’s all. We all do sometimes. But before I can say anything, she’s pushing him in the shoulder and laughing off his comment.

  “Sorry.” She smiles.

  “Don’t let it happen again,” he laughs back, dragging her into a hug. His gaze flits to me for a split second before they separate, and I wonder if that was all for my benefit. I’ve finally come to the conclusion that Ricky has a thing for O’Donnell, despite the death of his wife, but it’s obvious that the feeling isn’t mutual and she sees him as nothing but a friend.

  “Aww, look at you two.” I smile. “You’re like a brother and sister squabbling.”

  O’Donnell laughs, but Ricky’s face falls and I’m glad I touched a nerve. Even if we’ve come to a middle ground and are trying to get along, I like the idea of keeping him on his toes. I’m good at reading people—I needed it to survive before the world went to hell—and I can read him like a book written for a five-year-old.

  “What’s that?” O’Donnell asks before Ricky can respond. She points to his hand, and I look and see that he’s clutching a piece of paper.

  “Map,” he says, visibly shaking off his annoyance at my words. “At least part of one. Gives me an idea of whereabouts we are, if nothing else.”

  “And?” I ask.

  O’Donnell makes her way back around to the front of the truck and Ricky and I follow her.

  “Uncharted territory,” he replies, looking down at the old map page.

  I shrug. “Okay, so how do we get home?”

  “We don’t—at least not tonight,” Ricky replies, his statement sounding ominous.

  I shrug again. “Okay, so we need to find somewhere to hunker down for the night. No big deal.”

  And it isn’t—at least not for me. This is the way I live, moving from one safe place to another. I’ve been in several “safe camps” over the years, and moving base is second nature to me. Because nowhere is safe forever. Not the Forgotten camp, not our home in the trees, and not the army barracks. As long as I have a weapon and fuel in the tank, I’m good to go, but as I look at Ricky and O’Donnell—and Phil too as he finally comes back over, his hands covered in black gore and a semi-clean skull in his hands like he’s Hamlet or some shit—I realize that they don’t live like this. Sure, they’re survivalists, and they’re skilled too, but each night they go back home and sleep in their own beds, with their own things surrounding them, knowing that someone is on guard, watching their backs while they sleep.

  What must that be like, I wonder, to feel that safe and comfortable that being out in the open at night is worrying?

  I take the bull by the horns and decide to control the situation, because the anxious looks on their faces are beginning to freak me out.

  “Okay, O’Donnell, you check out the engine, and Ricky, work out where the next town is. I’ll drive us there, and then we can find somewhere safe for the night. Two of us keep watch and we’ll swap
out halfway so that we all get some sleep. We may even find some food and supplies along the way. It’s surprising the things you find out on the road.” I look over at them all, watching them exchange glances between themselves. “Come on, let’s get to it, we’re losing daylight.”

  O’Donnell and Ricky set about their tasks, leaving me and Phil to wait for them. He’s still holding the now-empty skull and grinning.

  I shake my head. “Why, man?”

  “It’s for Moo. She collects them,” he replies innocently. “She has a collection, of skulls.” He’s speaking slowly, as if I’m stupid.

  “Phil, I know what a collection is. I just don’t get it. You’re covered in that stuff now, and all for what? So you can take a skull home to Moo? Plus that thing already stinks, and it’s going to smell even worse soon enough.” I grimace.

  His smile falls. “You know, for a girl her age there’s not much she can collect anymore. Dolls, books, friendship bracelets—that crap is all gone.”

  “I know that,” I huff out impatiently.

  “When you strip everything back and pull away all of the presence, she’s just a kid, Mikey. She wants to do kid things, and kids have hobbies and collect weird crap.” It’s his turn to shrug now as he looks away from me and back down to his handiwork.

  “I think collecting skulls is taking the ‘collection of weird crap’ thing to a whole new level.”

  He laughs. “Probably, but it is what it is. We all have our coping mechanisms, and this is hers.”

  O’Donnell slams the hood down. “All right, it should get us a little further.” She looks at Ricky. “At least until the next town. There’s virtually no water or oil in the engine, so keep the revs down, take it easy, and we just might make it there in one piece before the damned thing blows.”